The myth of Rita Hayworth being “white-washed” and getting plastic surgery - Why?

Thank you for setting the record straight!

Actually, she was sold as a Mexican even though she wasn’t because she played all these female Latin lover type of parts! If anything, the woke people who don’t shut up about this should be screaming cultural appropriation, no?

R2 false. She played white women. Not Mexican women. And she changed her name and did get work done.

I know this is just a troll post about "woke people" and with a bunch of mistakes made on purpose ("no one got plastic surgery in Old Hollywood") to get people to reply, but before this turns into a garbage fire of a thread, I would like to point out that Rita Hayworth got a nose job along with hairline reduction.

What she really hairy near her pussy, like so many Mexican ladies?

What is the problem? Cosmetic surgery is intended to improve your looks, her surgeries transformed an average pretty girl into a goddess.

She was "white washed" just like Lauren Bacall. Also John Saxton, Dean Martin, John Garfield and Tony Curtis. She wasn't Anglo but Americans at the time had prejudice against Spanish, Italian, Jewish, Portuguese and other "ethnic whites." That's why these actors changed their names often at the pressure of the studios they were signed to. The definition of white then was British, German, French, Dutch, Irish, broadly Northern European. A lot of that changed after the 1950s and 1960s.

It was a great makeover. She had such thick dark hair that her hairline made her lower face look too big.

R7 Spanish, Portuguese, Greek, Italian are still viewed as “white” more than white in a lot of America. Jewish is barely viewed as white.

I’ve blocked the “everyone and her mother had nose jobs” trolls, so they must be the ones replying here. Rita lost a lot of weight before she got famous, that changes your [gasp] face! And her “name change” was shortening her real name into a common nickname and taking her mother’s maiden name.

Surgery as it exists today did not exist in the early 1940s. The most that could have happened is the tip of her nose got taken off, which I don’t see at all on her face. Raising your hair line through electrolysis (which, again, is LASER HAIR REMOVAL) isn’t surgery. Is shaving surgery? What about waxing?

R7 1950s??? Lmaooo what????

Try 1970s/1980s.

R10 nose jobs existed in the 1940s.

She may have been whitewashed but it gave her a huge career.

She would hardly have had such a career if she was seen as a Mexican actress

R9 Yeah but nobody is pressured to change their names and pretend to be an Anglo like they used to be. I think it's definitely regional, New Yorkers would laugh if you said Italians and Jews were not white.

Some Italians themselves don’t consider themselves “white”. It was an ongoing joke on TikTok, the whole “I’m not white, I’m Italian” thing lol.

R14 yeah but places like NY consider brown Hispanics white when they aren’t. Not really a good place to make an argument. There’s a lot more to the country than the East Coast and West Coast.

R15 Mestizos with brown skin and Indigenous features are not seen as "white" in the Northeast. Puerto Ricans and Dominicans with heavy African admixture are just seen as light skinned Black people. So I don't think that's true.

Yes, but no one makes the same fuss over Lauren Bacall being white-washed. She had to change her name and wasn’t broadcasting her Jewish identity until later in her career. From what I understand, Rita’s father was a well known dance instructor in Hollywood and everyone would have known she was Spanish. She played flamenco dancers and wives of bullfighters. Shelley Winters (another Jewish woman who changed her name) probably played closer to stereotypical young Jewish female roles, but they were mostly just young.

And there were a number of actually Latino big names in Hollywood before or during Rita’s time - Lupe Velez, Jose Ferrer, Dolores Del Rio, Ramon Novarro, Cesar Romero, Ricardo Montalban, Anthony Quinn. Linda Darnell, you could make a bigger case for whitewashing as she wasn’t actually white like Rita.

Merle Oberon is a legitimate case of white washing oneself. She pretended her Indian mother was her maid for years.

And the only Italian Americans who wouldn't identify as white are ones with parents fresh off the boat and thus identify more with Italian than the social construct of white or the ones who are legitimately from the Southern parts and show more Middle Eastern phenotypes and get mistaken for Latino or Arab.

Pre-Code Hollywood was pretty diverse. You had Latino, black, Asian, Jewish and Italian actors and many ethnic groups had their own studios and made films in different languages for immigrant viewers. The film industry was based in New Jersey. Once the consolidation of smaller studios into big ones occurred and they moved to Hollywood for the better filming conditions. It led to a monopoly of filmmaking and the smaller studios ended up fading away. Many of them couldn't preserve their films, so they ended up destroyed or lost. Then once The Hayes Code was passed, films were heavily screened and had to appeal white conservative Protestant American sentiment.

I was white washed too! Only just in a slightly different... method.

[quote]Studio head Harry Cohn signed her to a seven-year contract and tried her out in small roles.

[quote]Cohn argued that her image was too Mediterranean, which limited her to being cast in "exotic" roles that were fewer in number. He was heard to say her last name sounded too Spanish. Judson acted on Cohn's advice: Rita Cansino became Rita Hayworth when she adopted her mother's maiden name, to the consternation of her father.  With a name that emphasized Irish-American ancestry, people were more likely to regard her as a classic "American".

[quote]With Cohn and Judson's encouragement, Hayworth changed her hair color to dark red and had electrolysis to raise her hairline and broaden the appearance of her forehead.

[quote]In the process of becoming Rita Hayworth, Margarita Carmen Cansino went through a number of transformations–from her name to a makeover that “eliminated most traces of her ethnicity,” Blakemore writes. But studios highlighted the diets, the painful treatments to change her hairline and the name change–Hayworth was her Irish-American mother’s maiden name–as evidence of her value.

[quote]An important area where Cansino/Hayworth’s Latina identity shone through was dance, writes author Priscilla Peña Ovalle. Even though she’d undergone a full “glamour makeover” by the studio, transforming in on-screen appearance from a visibly Latina person to a white one, she continued to dance in a manner that was seen as sexualized, "ethnic" and, to Fred Astaire at least, more appealing than the dance of other stars. Astaire, with whom she starred in two films, said she was his favorite dance partner.

[quote]And the only Italian Americans who wouldn't identify as white are ones with parents fresh off the boat and thus identify more with Italian than the social construct of white

Which makes no sense because Italian culture IS white culture.

There's a fascinating documentary called "Prodigal Sons".

It's about a transwoman going back to Montana for her high school reunion. There's a lot of family drama that involves her brother, who was adopted.

The twist in the story is that they somehow discover that he is the secret grandson of Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles.

[quote]The only modifications she got were laser hair removal (yes, this is what electrolysis means, it’s not plastic surgery),

Why do you keep repeating this? Lasers weren't even invented until the 1960s.

Did they use lasers for hair removal in prehistoric times like the 60s?

Maybe "lasers" is simplistic, but electrolysis is "the removal of hair roots or small blemishes on the skin by the application of heat using an electric current." It's SIMILAR to laser hair removal, is more painful and takes longer but has a more permanent effect. Neither are plastic surgery. Many people get laser hair removal to make electrolysis less painful.

[quote]She would hardly have had such a career if she was seen as a Mexican actress

[quote]An important area where Cansino/Hayworth’s Latina identity shone through was dance

She wasn't Mexican or Latina. Her father was of Romani descent and was born in Spain. Her mother was Irish/English. Rita herself was born in Brooklyn. How one gets "Mexican" and "Latina" out of that is beyond me.

[quote]Maybe "lasers" is simplistic

No -- it's WRONG.

R23 umm no. There's no one Italian culture. It's a collection of regions with their own customs, history and language that were unified as one Italy in the late 1800s. You can be Italian culturally and of any background as long as your family assimilates. Only rural conservatives would question that.

White culture is mainstream American culture. Nobody outside of The US says "I'm white", "that's for white people", "that's such a white thing", etc. In Europe that would be redundant. Nobody in Africa says they're black and nobody in Asia says they're Asian for similar reasons.

[quote]Surgery as it exists today did not exist in the early 1940s.

That was a good thing!

Linda Darnell Latina, R17??

She was of indigenous descent, which is what most non-white Latinos are.

R33 Her father was from Spain and Romani descent. Romani in Southern and Eastern Europe descend from a low caste tribe from Pakistan that were banished centuries ago. But I also must add there are some Spaniards and Portuguese with Indigenous American descent because the colonial empires brought back handfuls as domestic servants and also high status Mestizos moved to Iberia. Similar to Creoles who moved to France. It's a tiny number but they exist

If you look at movies made from 1920s on there were lots of Latin stars. In the 40s, many musicals were set in Latin America with the female lead in love with a dashing Latin lead or vice versa. That continued into the 50s and then just stopped. But the really big stars after the code had to have a white bread persona. Lots of Latin character actors, second leads, etc. though.

R35 I noticed that with black actors. Only all black musicals (though Carmen Jones and Black Orpheus had respectable budgets) or a musical number cameo in a mostly white film. Black films from the 1910s to early 40s were way more interesting and had black directors too.

Electrolysis and laser hair removal are not the same procedure, dumbass, OP.

Rita at Fox, in 1935. just before her contract was axed by Zanuck.

Before Zanuck took over the studio , Winfield Sheehan was Fox' chief of production and intended Rita to co-star with Don Ameche in " "Ramona" the study's first full Technicolor feature. She would have played the Half-Indian girl brought up in a wealthy household is loved by the son of the house against his family's wishes and loves another Indian (Ameche) employed by the household. Zanuck wanted a clean-out of most of the older Fox contract players (Alice Faye, Don Ameche and Loretta Young - who wound up playing Ramona - and Jane Withyers and Fox's biggest star Shirley Temple were among the few who survived) Rita Cansino was out.

Year later, after Zanuck ate crow by borrowing Rita from Columbia for three films ("Blood and Sand", "Tales of Manhattan" and "My Gal Sal" ) Alice Faye cheerfully recalled how she, Ameche and the older behind-the scenes workers who knew Rita were delighted to welcome her back savoring Zanuck's personal humiliation.

The irony of this is many Brits and Irish have a Mediterranean look that goes to their Celtic origins. Plenty of WASPs had dark curly hair, dark eyes and tanned easily. Look at all the historical English and Colonial portraits of the gentry, I was surprised they were not all blonde and blue-eyed like the Anglo-Saxon stereotype, many were quite dark. The English exaggerated their Anglo-Saxon DNA and even equated it with "Nordicness" but most of England is Celtic descended from Ancient Britons, Anglo-Saxons were just a ruling class from the Germanic lands hence the Royal Family being supposedly more German. So English do have a higher percentage of Germanic DNA but it's only a bit higher than Ireland, Cornwall, Scotland and Wales but not enough to change everyone.

I think the higher percentage of Dutch, German, Irish and Scandinavian DNA made White Americans look so Germanic/Nordic and that fair-haired and blue-eyed image was heavily pushed throughout the 20th century in advertisements, sitcoms and other things. Many white people especially from the Appalachia and South with mostly British and Irish ancestry can look quite dark.

r19 makes a point long-overlooked by film historians. Pre-code Hollywood publicly acknowledged the racial diversity of its members . In 1932, PHOTOPLAY featured a cheeky article about the Eddie Cantor vehicle "The Kid from Spain" noting "Even the bulls are flabbergasted! And wait till Spain sees it! The director is Irish, the cameraman is French, his assistant is Japanese, the still man is German, one villain is Dalmatian, the other is Irish, the comedienne (Lyda Roberti) is Polish, and the "kid" himself is Russian Jewish. The bulls came from Mexico and the matador from Brooklyn. And still we go Spanish."

In "Taxi!" (1932) James Cagney chats in yiddish and in "Wonder Bar" Al Jolson (In blackface!) reads a Yiddish newspaper in Hebrew.

R29 You're totally right! I see also see this type of reasoning thrown out the window with Ava Gardner, for example, who many people (even on here) think is part black. She wanted to be, because her dad was a racist and she was very pro-civil rights, but many people of mostly Euro descent are naturally dark looking. It's more likely she had Native American blood, if ANYTHING. DL thinks someone who doesn't look like they could star in Mame must be non-white.

R41 I agree, she can pass for Irish, Welsh or Southern English. Look at Catherine Zeta Jones or Victoria Adams Beckham, kinda similar look. In North Carolina where Ava is from, there were many white people with NA DNA and many with AA DNA, plenty of them had both. But these people were heavily British and Irish descent. The Lumbee tribe is very tri-racial and they have more African DNA, which is why they stand out more. Many of NA tribes in North Carolina are tri-racial and they have a certain look. There's really nothing to indicate Ava had African DNA nor Native DNA. I think Johnny Depp in comparison looks pretty tri-racial.

Depp always looked Native to me. I'm shocked he isn't.

Her father, Eduardo Cansino, was of Spanish Roma/Gitano descent from Castilleja de la Cuesta, a little town near Seville, Spain. Her mother, Volga Hayworth, was an American of Irish and English descent who had performed with the Ziegfeld Follies. The couple married in 1917.

Her father was a Spaniard of Romani descent

Rita played a Romani character

Despite OP’s insistence, I have never read that the young Rita Hayworth had plastic surgery.

What’s always written about her makeover is they raised her hairline and gave her a red dye job.

I can only imagine what getting plastic surgery was like way back then. Yikes!

[quote]The definition of white then was British, German, French, Dutch, Irish, broadly Northern European. A lot of that changed after the 1950s and 1960s.

Except on Datalounge! 😂😂

Sometimes DL reads like mid-century America, it's strangely fascinating .

Vic Damone had a nose job that changed him from nerdy-looking to handsome. I guess that would have been late 1940s.

Pre-antibiotics, I certainly would not have been having any surgery that wasn't absolutely medically necessary. But plastic surgery had been growing in leaps and bounds since WW1.

[quote]The definition of white then was British, German, French, Dutch, Irish, broadly Northern European. A lot of that changed after the 1950s and 1960s.

Ridiculous.

Stop rewriting history.

Stupid people see that Rita Hayworth was "Spanish" and think it's a euphemism for Latina.

I read she had her hairline moved back. They plucked her hairline to make her less “lowbrow”.

Hair today gone tomorrow

I liked Rita, she was a great dancer and always looked like she enjoyed it immensely.

She got to enjoy Aly Khan’s massive dick, though it wasn’t enough for her to hang around and stay married to him.

R52 She was Romani which isn’t white

Her father was a Spaniard of ROMANI descent

She was romesco, and she was delicious.

She used to look like Teresa Giudice

Shelley Winters said Rita had electrolysis to create a more European "widow's peak" hairline; a chin implant; her hair was dyed a strawberry pink color because it photographed as red in Technicolor; and she wore lots of makeup to lighten her skin tone. Probably had her nose tweaked, too.

Fucking Shelley Winters! What the fuck would that lying cow know?

Those early bakelite chin implants were so uncomfortable